Da Silva looked across the table with feigned hurt.
“I don’t think it’s very polite to rub it in,” he said stiffly, and hid his smile by turning to wave the waiter to their table...
3
The warden’s office at the Penitenciário de Bordeirinho was no better furnished than was necessary for the fulfillment of its principal function — which was to accept the delivery of prisoners from the Sheriff of Recife (giving, of course, the proper number of receipts), maintain them through that portion of their sentences which they managed to survive, and then to arrange as expeditious a burial for them as possible (sending, of course, all records back to Recife to be stored in the archives). The burial, however, was no worse than most nonprisoners in that area of Brazil received, which was — at best — a cheap unpainted casket and the minimum of earth in breadth, depth, and width.
It was not that the penitentiary at Bordeirinho was any worse than the one at São José dos Campos, for example; or even any worse than some of its counterparts in places like Arkansas, or Florida, or Berlin, or Prague — it was simply that it was no better. Funds for the free were scarce enough in northeast Brazil; funds for the incarcerated were often considered an unwarranted waste. And funds for the dead, of course, were funds taken from the living — the living quite often being prison officials.
Nor did the furnishings of the dingy warden’s office consist of more than the bare necessities: two scratched and listing file cabinets, a cupboard unopened in years, a battered desk with the minimum of paper on it to mar the uniformity of its layer of dust, three chairs — one solid and upholstered for the warden, the other two hard and unstable for visitors — a clock on the wall with filigreed hands and chipped Roman numerals that expressed its age, a filthy sink in one corner with a streaked mirror above it, and in another corner a small table covered with a cracked patterned plastic cloth and holding the implements for the making of coffee, a vital adjunct to even the most unkempt office in Brazil. From the open barred windows the wide stone-paved yard could be inspected, with the three two-story concrete cellblocks completing the quadrangle. Tiny windows peeked down at the inhospitable pavement beneath turreted machine-gun towers set above the cellblock corners and connected with barbed wire.
The prisoner being ushered into the office had a faint smile of amusement on his heavy, black features. Age had taken little toll of William Trelawney McNeil; true, the lines in his face were a bit deeper, and there was the faintest touch of gray at the temples of his kinky hair, but his years in prison had taken nothing from the broadness of his shoulders, the depth of his chest, or the muscles that still bulged under the thin prison uniform. Work on a rock pile has that advantage, at least; it builds muscle tone.
He took the accustomed stance of a prisoner before the warden, his manacled hands clasped before him, his wide shoulders thrown back, his yellowish eyes staring straight ahead, looking over the warden’s head at a calendar that continued to show a month long since past. Still, in prison it really didn’t matter. The guard who had accompanied the prisoner stood back against the wall, hitching his side-gun to a more comfortable position, watching the proceedings with bored eyes. The warden, a string-bean of a man with a hard face and a straggling yellowish mustache, dressed in cotton drill with an open-throated shirt, looked up.
“McNeil.”
“Yes, sir.”
The warden picked up a pencil and drummed it. He glanced over his shoulder a moment and instantly looked back at his desk. He seemed a trifle uncomfortable, a bit irritated, an unusual feeling for him and one he obviously disliked. It was apparent that his actions at the moment had been dictated by superiors, that whatever he was about to say he had been told to say. The prisoner kept a frozen countenance, staring somberly at the calendar, but within he was grinning. The warden came back to his task.
“McNeil. You get out of here in two weeks. You’ve done your fifteen years—”
He paused. It suddenly occurred to the warden that he and McNeil had both been prisoners: He had come to the penitentiary just about that time. For some reason the thought angered him, as if it were somehow at least partially McNeil’s fault. The prisoner remained quiet, respectful on the surface, the smile of contempt held back, as if he could read the other’s mind. The warden tossed the pencil aside and began his speech again.
“McNeil. You’ve been a good prisoner, considering all things. One session in solitary for hitting that doctor, and I still don’t know why—” He paused as if awaiting an answer. McNeil remained silent, rigidly at attention. The warden shrugged. “At any rate, you’re still guilty as hell of the crime you are convinced of. I’ve been instructed to advise you not to get any idea that your fifteen years in prison have paid in any way for the stuff you stole. They still aren’t yours. Do you understand that?”
“I understand what you’re saying, sir.”
The foreign language, learned well over the years, still had not removed the deep softness from the big man’s voice; he sounded as if he were speaking in his native island tongue, merely translated to Portuguese.
“Well, just don’t forget it,” the warden said flatly. “I just want to tell you the stones aren’t yours. I was also told to tell you that wherever you go from the time you leave here, you’re going to be followed and watched. Constantly. You’ll never set hands on those stones.”
The big man never shifted his glance from the calendar on the wall. “Yes, sir.”
“And this is for myself,” the warden added. “If you get picked up anymore, you’ll spend time in somebody else’s jail, not mine. And just be happy about it, McNeil. Because if they left it up to me, you’d tell where those stones are, and you’d tell in a hurry.” He waited for an answer, received none, and glanced over his shoulder again. “That’s all, McNeil. You can go.”
The armed guard pushed himself erect and walked forward, placing a hand on the big man’s arm, but McNeil shrugged it off, postponing his leave-taking for a moment. The guard hesitated and then waited, his hand dropping to the butt of his revolver, looking at the warden for instructions. For the first time the prisoner showed expression: He grinned broadly.
“Before I leave, warden, what do you want me to do?”
“What?”
“I asked, what do you want me to do? Sing? Dance? Tell funny stories?”
The tiny eyes across from him narrowed dangerously.
“What are you talking about?”
The big man’s eyes dropped from their inspection of the calendar, twinkling down at the warden. He spread his feet a bit taking an at-ease stance.
“Ain’t that what you’re supposed to do when you’re on camera, warden? Sing? Dance? Tell funny stories?” He gestured with his head in the direction of the sink. “Who’s back of the mirror today, warden?”
“There’s nothing back of that mirror except plaster wall.” The warden reddened; then his mouth turned down, a sign of his anger. “And I told you before. You can go.”
“Yes, sir.” McNeil brought himself back to attention and turned, moving ahead of the guard to the door. He paused as the guard reached around him to open it, then spoke over his shoulder. His tone was friendly. “But I’d get a new two-way mirror, warden. That one’s beginning to wear, sir. Especially a man lights a cigarette back of it. And especially you keep looking over your shoulder at it every five minutes, sir.”
He brought his face back to a non-committal expression and walked through the door. The guard swung it closed. The warden came to his feet and marched to the mirror, glowering into it.
“Fool!” he said in disgust and anger. “Idiot! Lighting a cigarette!”